


Not a Consort

by Zoya1416



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: F/M, MAJOR SPOILERS for Foxglove Summer, Rap Song, Yearning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-28
Updated: 2015-03-28
Packaged: 2018-03-20 00:38:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3630159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoya1416/pseuds/Zoya1416
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beverley visits Peter after Foxglove Summer.<br/>This has MAJOR SPOILERS FOR ALL OF FOXGLOVE SUMMER.  MAJOR.  Including the ending. Which is why this is in the summary. You have been warned.</p>
<p>Also, it will be more fun to read if you've listened to the Rivers of London rap song.<br/>http://www.gollancz.co.uk/2014/11/the-rivers-of-london-rap-is-here/</p>
<p> </p>
            </blockquote>





	Not a Consort

Beverley Brook was visiting me in the tech cave and trying to crack my passwords, as usual. I know she's going to do it, so I leave a second front page up as a decoy. I could tell the instant she found the song. The familiar chords ground out and I sneaked a look at her gradually more frowning face.

She turned to me when it finished.

“I don't recall giving you permission to use me in a rap video.”

This is why I don't tell her everything ahead of time.

“You didn't like it?”

“What, that little muppet playing swirly circles with water? I could do more than that by the time I could walk. And she has terrible fashion sense.”

I couldn't help saying, “Do you wish she'd done it naked?” 

Beverly reached to slap me, but I proved that police physical training skills are not wasted as I dove over the arm of the couch. Then I had to open my mouth again.

“I suggested showing Covent Garden being flooded, but was voted down.”

She glared more.

“Who's responsible for this? They didn't talk to me first.”

“Ah, that's the fault of our Watson.”

“Watson?”

“Yes, like Dr. Watson was to Sherlock Holmes. Wrote up all his cases, the ones he could. Nightingale's Watson is Ben Aaronovitch, and his nephew and another guy wrote this song.”

“Mikis Michaelides and Doc Brown.”

I could see she'd been playing me. She knew all along.

“You know, Ben's next novel is a lot about you. How you rescued me from the evil fairy queen and her carnivorous unicorns, cold steel, steam locomotive and all. He particularly like the shotgun."

She smiled grimly, and I could smell smoke and metal mixed with the strawberries, cream and gum of her normal vestigia. It was a good smell, actually, not better than the other, but more...complex. She smelled more powerful, and I wondered how much her rescuing me had changed us.

“So this Aaronovitch fellow is writing up police cases? I surprised Nightingale and the Met let him.”

“It's the snooper state. We, the Met, have vast records on the PNC and PND, checked only by the IPT.”

She let me know she was not amused by my jargon.

“Police National Computer and Police National Database. That's what it's called today; it will probably change by tomorrow. And the Investigatory Powers Tribunal doesn't let complainants know why they were targeted. How much is available to the public—depends on quite a few variables. Mr. Aaronovitch is apparently very persuasive.” 

“What does the Nightingale say?”

I still itched to know why the magic community often referred to Nightingale that way. I certainly wasn't going to get any answers from him.

“He says that people are going to think it's fiction and fantasy, and won't believe it's anything more. Apparently there are a number of writers doing the same thing—they postulate magic, vampires, werewolves and the like, in a current urban environment. The others are for entertainment only. The video didn't even show the Folly—he wouldn't have allowed that. A needle hiding in a stack of needles, he said.”

I paused to settle back down on the couch and pick up my beer. Rain pattered on the roof of the coach house, quietly. We'd been watching football, but Beverly wanted to switch to 'Britain's Got Talent.' When I scoffed at her taste, she crinkled her cat-shaped eyes at me in a canny smile.

“Peter. It's a THAMES production. Think about that.”

So Mama Thames was getting more magical energy from the second largest TV series in the country. We were so doomed. I had to tell Nightingale, but I'd have to explain the show to him first. We'd gotten distracted from the topic of what Mr. Aaronovitch wrote in his books, which was all to the good, when suddenly Beverly circled back around.

“You said this writer had a book on what happened last summer? Not everything that happened, I hope.”

I took another sip of my beer to concentrate on my thoughts. We hadn't talked about this since returning to London.

“You mean...the part where we got frisky in the water and impregnated the river?”

She leaned close to me and her breast pressed against my arm. With her that close, I remembered every detail of the magic, flowing down and under the river, making love for miles. There was also the bit where she'd withdrawn from me and left me freezing cold. Having to walk along a public highway naked was a memory I'd like to wipe out, as well. Somehow this erotic swim had fertilized a stretch of river which had no genius locii. She couldn't or wouldn't explain it to me.

“Um—I think Isis and Oxley or the three witches might have said something. I didn't, I can tell you. Have you talked to the little fellow recently? Do I get custody visits? There is the Children Act of 1989, you know.”

“So help me god, Peter, you are the most daft man I've ever known. Even I don't get to know things until 'they upstream' send down messages. It's not human biology. I'm not even sure I could get pregnant the normal way, if I didn't want to.” She suddenly smiled that satisfied way again.

She pulled me closer and I could smell the cocoa butter in her hair, along with a strengthening of her vestigia. Beside the new smoke and steel, she also had something else, a far-off water meadow in bloom, I thought. For an instant her glamour was strong and I wavered towards her. I wanted her, but did I want to be captured again? I've been resisting glamour for a long time now, and I pulled away at the same time she did. 

She stood up on those long beautiful brown legs, and stretched her arms to the heavens. Her chest was outlined and straining through her shimmering green blouse and I followed those curves for an instant. Then I stood up, too, picked up her umbrella and handed it to her. She kissed me quickly on the mouth and was out the door of the coach house before I could blink.

My dick and I weren't completely happy with my decision. Being made love to by a river goddess is an incomparable experience. But I'm a copper, and not a consort. I turned off the TV and the coach house lights, heading back to my own room.  
The smell of strawberries, cream, iron, and water meadows chased me all the way.


End file.
